


degenerate slicer, reporting for duty

by peradi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, au where dj is force sensitive and in the resistance, i wanted to write some crack ship so here, read the other one first it will make more sense, written at midnight so uh, yeah I don't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 19:24:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13173585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peradi/pseuds/peradi
Summary: DJ, Rey and the Resistance: the world's least likely Jedi adapts to life on the side of the Light.





	degenerate slicer, reporting for duty

“What are you doing?” Rey says, her voice sharp. She’s a good twenty years younger than him, but she has adopted the role of Wise Mentor with alarming alacrity. 

“Meditating.”

“Hmm. Looks more like you are smoking a deathstick.”

“Five deathsticks,” DJ says, showing her the bundle he has rigged up as he huffs out a thick grey cloud. 

“Five deathsticks. You are a moron.”

“You said to empty my mind. That is what I am doing.”

“I said to  _ meditate _ ,” she says. “You -- “ And here she flusters. He feels her irritation in the Force. It’s like a huge, angry predator nibbling at his fingers: painful, but restrained. “--you absolute piece of shit.”

“You’re learning from me.”

“Learning to swear? I knew that before I met you.”

“Learning to swear  _ at _ people. There’s a difference.” DJ takes another puff, his eyes sinking shut. He holds the smoke in his lungs, feels the narcotic seep into his blood. 

Rey smacks his shoulder. He barely feels it. 

Then she slaps smartly him across the face. He feels  _ that. _

“Oh stop that, you’re turning me on.”

She shows her teeth. It is most emphatically not a smile. 

“I will remove your entire dick and feed it to you.”

“That sounds a wee bit Dark Side to me.”

“I must have done something monumentally awful in a past life,” Rey says, “to deserve a student as  _ miserable,  _ as  _ ridiculous  _ as you.”

“I’m not your only student.”

“You are my only  _ adult _ student. The others are little ones. You can’t teach children to fight, it isn’t okay.”

“The old Jedi didn’t think that.”

“The old Jedi are dead in the dust and here I am, the last one, training the new generation. I’ve got the old tomes. I’m picking and choosing what works.”

“And here we are.”

“Here we are.”

She plucks the deathstick-bundle out of his limp hand, drops it on the ground, grinds it under her foot. 

“Meditate properly.”

“You said to let go of everything, every last attachment. How can I do that without smoking -- “

“Do it.” She pauses, thinking. “ _ Bitch _ ,” she adds, with a sly little grin.

“I’m a bad influence on you, aren’t I?”

“You’re -- you are ridiculous.”

“And yet here you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here you are,” DJ presses, hopping to his feet, deathstick-unsteady. They’re in the corner of the hangar. The designated Jedi Area, cordoned off with crates and scrap parts. Space is scarce on the new Resistance base. You take what you can get.

Everything about the Resistance is still very ramshackle. Pilots meander about, fixing up X-Wings, bickering over engine parts -- there isn’t really much to go around -- and shouting at each other in a dozen languages. Despite the disarray of the operation -- perhaps  _ because  _ of it -- the Force is bright and living here, so potent that you could grab it in handfuls, if you were so inclined.

“Yes, here I am. Training you.”

“Training me. Where are your friends?”

“My -- “

“Rose is with Finn, right? And Finn is with Poe. Where there’s Poe there’s Finn, where there’s Finn there’s Rose and --”

“Oh, shut up. We’re  _ training _ .”

“And they’re doing other things.”

“You’re a piece of shit. And they can do whatever they want.”

“I’m  _ your _ piece of shit,” says DJ. “And I’m not saying you’re jealous --”

“I’m not jealous.” Rey leaps into the air and lands gracefully: her legs crossed, her hands resting on her knees, her eyes closed. “Close your eyes.”

DJ obeys.

_ Listen to your heart. Your breathing _ . 

_ I am doing. _

_ No you’re not, you’re talking to me.  _

DJ clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He listens to his heart: the slow, steady beat. The flow of his blood. The rush of his breath, in and out of his throat. Yes. He reaches into the Force, sinking deeper into his surroundings, sinking deeper into  _ himself -- _

_ Yes, here I am. I am home.  _

He can hear the heartbeat of every pilot bustling around them. Their emotions spark around them: J’tara Dancer is furious that Nana Starbright stole her laze-drive; Nana Starbright is frightened, because she wants to ask J’tara out for a drink and she thinks that she’s scuppered her chances.

Emotions are colours, tastes, images. J’tara’s anger is hot and purple, striking against the back of DJ’s palate. Nana’s fear is spangling and wet. 

_ Will you ever tire of spying on other people? _

_ Never. It’s my livelihood.  _

**_Was_ ** _ your livelihood.  _

_ Still is. Jedi have to read people, don’t they? _

_ Oh, don’t start. Meditate. _

_ I am meditating.  _

_ Meditating is silent.  _

_ So is your mum.  _

_ My mother was a Jakku junkie who sold me for scrap.  _ Rey’s thoughts are tinged with sorrow, which tastes of metal and smells like rotting flesh. If she had spoken the sentence aloud, she would have sounded ironic, snappy. But this mind-to-mind communication thing doesn’t let you hide anything. 

_ Yeah, so was mine.  _ DJ flashes Rey a quick image: a pretty woman dressed in sparkling red.  _ Her pimp lost me in a bet. I think he was my dad, but I’m not too sure. There were about fifteen contenders. My mother really was a whore.  _

_ Bit harsh.  _

_ True though.  _

A lengthy pause. DJ takes the hint and tries his very best to meditate, sinking deeper and deeper into the Force. The throb of his heart. His breath, his lungs expanding and contracting. 

_ It doesn’t matter, you know.  _

_ What doesn’t? _

_ Who your family was. You are who you are. Where you are from doesn’t matter, only where you are going. _

_ Precisely,  _ DJ thinks.  _ Precisely.  _

 

\--

 

DJ arrived to the Resistance with a ship full of fathiers and orphans, and was promptly thrown in the brig, because it turns out that selling one of the most favoured sons of the Resistance to General Gingerbollocks is not conducive to having the General trust you. It takes a great deal of pleading from Rey to stop them executing him on the spot. After being punched in the face by Finn -- which he definitely deserved -- and spending the best part of a night hiding from Roundy, who was intent on tazing off his genitals (he’s less sure about deserving that; he was nothing but delightful to the droid), he settled down to make himself useful. The Resistance didn’t have much tech and what they did have was banthashit useless. 

The meddroids for example. They had two. One worked. The other only dispensed two medications: a very strong painkiller and an erectile dysfunction pill. These pills looked the same, and were dispensed pretty much at random.

Obviously this led to some problems. 

DJ immediately set about fixing them. The medicine manufacturing bit worked perfectly; it was the communication to it that was fucked, and a few days work with his slicer keys and an old modem (sanctified to the Force the traditional way, by burning a pornographic magazine as a tribute to those who had worked on it before him) had it working again. He then turned his attention to their comms, which were woefully insecure. 

“I can make t-t-them better,” he said to Finn. Finn folded his arms, and DJ was painfully aware of the other man’s biceps. 

“Yeah, and sell us out the first chance you get? You’re a snake.”

“I-I-I am. But I’m a s-s-snake who is damn good at slicing.”

“You can’t trust him,” Finn said, looking not at DJ but Rey. Rey followed him around a lot in the early days -- partly because she  _ didn’t _ trust him, mostly because she didn’t trust the Resistance not to kick the shit out of him. Work had got around who had sold them out, after all. 

“I can read his thoughts,” Rey said. “He doesn’t have anything hidden from me. We need a slicer; he’s the only one we have.”

Finn thinned his lips and glowered. DJ couldn’t help but nudge at Finn’s Force presence -- not mind-reading, he couldn’t do anything so useful yet, but he  _ could _ feel Finn’s anger (red and sparking) and, overshadowing that, his trust for Rey. It was as depthless as the ocean, as strong and sure as the tide, and caught DJ with such giddying intensity that he looked over at Rey and for one moment she shone. Beautiful. Bright. The centre of the world. The -- 

He pulled away from Finn, just as the other man said: “I’m here for you, Rey. I trust you. And if you say we need him then we need him.” Finn turned back to DJ. “If you betray her she won’t have  _ time _ to kill you.”

“Wouldn’t expect a-a-anything  _ else _ ,” DJ said, with a sharp little smile. 

 

_ \-- _

 

DJ’s breakfasts tend to be lazy; he likes to sleep in, as he does his best slicing work in the wee hours of the morning -- that has the added bonus of staying away from the majority of the Resistance. Finn and Rose tolerate his presence as long as Rey is present. The rest of the encampment tend to mutter as he walks past. 

Though this problem diminishes as the Resistance grows. The more people arrive, the more the camp splits at the seams, the fewer people recognise him on sight as the bastard who sold them to the First Order. 

It occurs to DJ that he is already planning ahead to the future of the Resistance. His future  _ in _ the Resistance. 

Don’t join. Stay free. Stay free, do not join, and yet here he is, joined and -- well, not free. But freer than the alternative. He has dreams of Hux smiling, blood on his teeth, snarling  _ DJ, DJ, DJ, I will eat you up and spit out your bones.  _ He has dreams of Kylo Ren snapping every one of his fingers like matchsticks. 

Sometimes life is a matter of picking the best choice of a bad bunch. 

He folds his hands in his lap, focuses. His mug of kaf drifts up off the table. In the past he would spike it with stims, but he feels less inclined to do so now. He hadn’t noticed that he’d detoxed off most of the recreational drugs he used to use. It just kind of happened. 

The mug clinks back into the saucer. 

“Enjoying yourself?” Rey says, arriving as she always does: a blur of light and sound in the Force, a strange counterpoint to the soft pad of her feet. She walks lightly, like she has someone to hide from. It’s the product of a childhood lived in the company of death. 

DJ would know. Rey is not the only one who grew up hungry and alone.

“Practicing. You’re always on at me to do it.” She sits down opposite him. “You’ve been flying,” he says. “I can feel it. The F-f-force around you is s-s-singing. It’s -- “ He fishes through his pockets, locates a spare deathstick and lights up. “It’s b-bright blue. All around you is b-b-bright blue.”

Rey smirks, shoves a forkful of rehydrated breakfast into her mouth. She’s the only person he’s ever met who eats their rations with every sign of enjoyment. 

“And  _ you’ve _ been starting your morning with deathsticks again. You’re babbling.”

DJ grins, takes a drag and offers the deathstick to her.

( _ Most _ of the recreational drugs, not all.) 

“Want some?”

Her nose wrinkles up. “No thank you.”

“It’s good for calming you down.”

“I think you’re too calm,” she says, plucking it from his fingers and dropping it in his kaf. There’s something about the gesture -- casual and confident and  _ effortless  _ in the way she doesn’t order she just  _ does _ \-- that sends his stomach flipping over. 

And then her eyes flicker up, over his left shoulder. She’s happy -- it feels bright and sparking -- at once, and that only means one thing -- 

“Finn!” she says. DJ rolls his eyes at her blatant joy. 

_ Oh fuck off with your cynicism. _

_ I think what I want. _

Rey bounces to her feet. Finn, Poe and Rose arrive as they always do: a triumvirate. And yet when Rey steps forward she joins the fold effortlessly, like she’s always meant to have been there. 

DJ can’t quite get his head around it. Slicers like him do not have friends. They have people that they have not betrayed yet. Why Rey chooses to associate with these three is beyond him -- what do they offer her? And these three -- they spend their nights all twined together. And yet during the day they want Rey there, and there is no jealousy between them. 

_ It’s friendship, you daft repoprate.  _

_ Oh shut up. _

 

_ \-- _

 

“Come on DJ, come at me -- “

“You’re too  _ fast.” _

“Well, if you weren’t high all the time -- “

“I’m not high now! I’m drunk. But only a bit.”

“You’re useless.”

“Why do I need to know how to fight? I’ll have a lightsabre -- “

“I’ll build you one when I say that you can have one,” says Rey. She breathes in slow, deliberate sips while DJ blusters and pants, his face turning scarlet with exertion. She holds her quarterstaff delicately, like it is part of her. DJ’s palms sweat and slide on his own weapon. He’s used to blasters, not this brute force. He used to be a bit soft around the edges -- nothing wrong with that! -- but now it seems that all the fat has melted right off him. 

“You know, you’ll have a lightsabre one day. You’ve got to learn to fight with the weapon that is your birthright.”

DJ’s never had a birthright before. He’s never had much of anything. The idea of a lightsabre, something ancestral, something  _ his  _ \--

_ You like the idea of  _ **_being_ ** _ something, don’t you? Something more than a sell-out slicer who lives in filth?  _ Rey’s smile is tight over her face. There’s a sort of joy that only projects from her when she is fighting: hot and blue, flashing and bright, like the sun on the ocean.

_ Maybe. But I’m a realist. Not all of us are born in the desert, staring up at the stars.  _

_ But the stars are always there, waiting to be stared at. It is never too late to start craning your neck.  _

_ That’s a bunch of pretentious bullshit. Did you get it from your Jedi texts? _

_ No. I thought it up. _

Rey kicks her heels merrily, dancing around him, keeping just out of the reach of his staff. Normally he can rile her up, but when she’s fighting she converts her emotions to movement. 

Beautiful, lethal movement. 

(oh fuck. His thoughts are slipsliding towards something -- )

_ I have never met anyone quite like you. Do you think that in different circumstances you would have become more like me?  _

_ What, an unrepentant dickbag? _

_ No. The world shaped me. I made the choices I needed in order to live and you -- you looked at the world and decided that it would change, not you.  _

“Just because other people are bad doesn’t mean I get to stop being good,” Rey muses, and sweeps his feet out from under him. He lands solidly on his arse. 

She helps him to his feet. For someone so slight, she is strong.

“Just b-b-because other people are bad d-d-doesn’t mean you can stop being good,” DJ echoes. “I think I p-p-prefer my motto.”

“Don’t join, stay free?”

DJ lashes out; Rey sidesteps effortless, scoops him up with the Force and hangs him upside down. His slicer keys, credits in various currencies, a mini droid, and Pava’s old comms device all skitter onto the floor. His coat flops down. At least he’s washed it since he arrived here. 

“Try harder padawan,” Rey singsongs, crooking her fingers, pulling him closer and up higher, so their faces are so close he can smell her breath: like mint and kaf. 

DJ, for once, is absolutely lost for words.

( _ Beautiful _ , he thinks, totally against his will.)

Rey’s smile grows softer, and she leans forward and kisses him. His toes point, warmth surging into his stomach, even as his blood pools in his scalp. It’s a nice kiss -- DJ’s a stranger to  _ nice _ kisses. The kisses he has experienced tend to be wet and toothy, drunken and sloppy. 

Her mouth is soft, her tongue is wet and warm, and she strokes his face, sighing happily to herself. A nice kiss. That is not to say it’s chaste: Rey parts her lips, and coos with delight when he tangles his fingers into her hair, undoing the plaits. 

“Uh,” he says as she pulls away. “That was -- I mean, Rey uh -- uh --”

She rolls her eyes and drops him. He lands in a tumble of limbs and coat. Thoroughly baffled, DJ staggers to his feet, adjusting his shirt, trying to look more ‘handsome rogue’ than ‘degenerate slicer’. 

“If I knew that was the way to shut you up,” she says, grinning, “then I would have done it a long time ago.”

“There are lots of ways t-t-to b-b-buy my silence,” says DJ, with what he hopes is a knowing smirk. It’s more lopsided leer, but it seems to work; Rey’s cheeks flush. 

“Good. Want to come back to my room?”

“S-s-straight forward. I l-like that in a girl.”

“There wasn’t much to do in Jakku. You take what you get.”

“A-a-and you think you can g-g-get me?”

“Oh  _ yes _ .”

“W-w-what kind of girl do you think I a-a-am?” 

Rey catches his nap and kisses him again. Her mind is open and bright, casual and happy. She likes this because it is  _ simple _ , because it is two people who -- against their better judgement -- find each other attractive. The rest of her life is a tangle of star-touched destiny and legend. He represents a moment carved from that: a moment of --

( _ flesh, sweat, sheet-tangling -- ) _

_ Ah _ . The Force bond can be used for other things. Rey leaps back, her eyes wide. 

“Didn’t mean to do that.”

She has not leapt back far, mainly because DJ has his hand up her top. 

“Please do t-t-that again,” he says, his eyes huge and dark. 

She bites her lower lip, steps back. “Come on. I’m not having sex in the corner of the hangar.” 

“I’ve had sex in worse places.”

“Oh, please don’t remind me.”

 

\--

 

Not much later, DJ has a lapful of young Jedi.

They are still kissing, but the kissing has moved from ‘nice’ to ‘absolute sloppy mess’ because DJ has one hand down Rey’s knickers and she has started grinding against him in a way that makes him want to  _ cry _ . He’s incredibly grateful that the younger Force users are not on this particular base, because he’s not entirely sure how to  _ stop  _ his brain broadcasting salient, not-safe-for-young ears facts. For example: Rey is warm and tight and wet inside and when he crooks his finger like   _ that _ she utters this thin, helpless little squeal which really is quite endearing. 

He kisses her neck, her spine arching in his hands, and her Force presence whirligigging around them, like a nest of fireflies. 

“Right, hang on, hang on,” Rey gabbles, hopping off his lap. “We’ve got to -- you’ve got condoms here, right?”

“No. But I’m on birth control.”

“Uh -- “

And he feels it: the flicker-dance of uncertainty. On Jakku, a pregnancy could be a death sentence. On Jakku, everyone lied, and you trusted no one, even those people you ended up taking to your bed. 

_ I --  _

_ Hey, I’m a whoreson slicer. I get it.  _

And so the first time he sleeps with Rey, he uses a condom. It’s not exactly a hardship. She’s still beautiful, feral and terrifying, and he digs his thumbs into the space above her hips, splaying his fingers over her arse, guiding her as she rides him. The headboard smacks against the wall. If he was less of a man, the fact that she was most definitely fucking him, not the other way around, would have troubled him. But it doesn’t. 

His thoughts fracture and split. All he can manage is  _ beautiful  _ and  _ so good  _ and he’s not sure if he’s saying those things or thinking them. The Force is a livid, snarling animal around them. 

When Rey cums, the wall  _ cracks _ . And then she’s all pliant and happy, trying to snuggle up to him, and he’s still  _ achingly _ hard and shuffles his hips a few times, reminding her that he is still  _ inside her _ and he has  _ needs damn it _ . 

“Well, now you know how it feels -- “

“Hey.  _ Hey _ . Don’t blame me for the sins of mankind. I’ve never been one of those guys.”

She grins. Languid. Syrupy. Ridiculous. DJ jerks his hips forwards a few times, to make a point; then they roll over. Rey’s legs loop around his waist and she sinks her teeth into his ear and it takes him precisely three thrusts to cum. 

“Right,” he says. “Uh.”

He lobs the condom in the general direction of her bin. Misses. Considers his options and decides that using the Force to levitate a condom is beneath his dignity. Instead, he succumbs to Rey’s terrible awful Jedi influence: snuggles up and falls asleep --

_ It is not beneath your dignity, you once pissed on your own coat.  _

He sticks out his hand. The condom does a little cartwheel and lands in the bin. 

Stay free. Don’t join.

And yet staying free led to such adventures as  _ pissing on his own coat _ . Joining up the Resistance has led to good sex with a nubile young Jedi, even if said Jedi kicks his arse more than she sucks his dick. 

It’s a trade off he’s willing to make.

 


End file.
